The present invention relates to a document output apparatus for outputting a document made up of plural cells to each of which data is assigned, the document output apparatus coloring the cells in accordance with the data assigned thereto.
In recent years, bus business-management office computers have been described which and general-purpose computers use a variety of application programs, such as spreadsheet and database programs, and therefore have a document output function for outputting obtained document data in various formats.
To output a document, it is necessary to determine the definitions of the document format, the output form, etc. This is usually done by utilization of a document defining function of an application program. First of all, a document format is determined, and the items to be output into the document and the definitions of the items are determined. Then, the name of a record file to be output in a document is determined, and the manner in which the data is output is determined by looking at the document format displayed by a monitor.
The document, the details of which are determined as explained above, is displayed on the monitor, and in this state data is developed in each of the cells of the document. The data in the cells includes letters, numerals, and calculation results calculated based on plural items. The conventional document defining technology provides a function of permitting the data of the cells to be output in the manner determined for each of the cells. By use of this function, it is possible to designate the color in which the data in each cell is output.
As described above, the conventional application programs, such as spreadsheet and database programs, incorporate document defining technology, and this technology provides a function of permitting the data of cells to be output in the manner determined for the cells. Although the function of this conventional technology permits data to be output in the manner determined for each of the cells, the definitions have to be entered for each of the cells. It is therefore cumbersome to enter the definitions in which the data in the cells are output. Hence, it is difficult to make good use of the function of determining the manner in which cell data is output.
Although it is possible to change the output manner of cell data in the displayed state of the document, the procedure for changing the manner of output is complex. It is thus hard to make good use of the output format defining the function of cell data.
The definitions for determining the output manner in which cell data of a document is output includes not only coloring but also marking display and alarm display. If these definitions are used too much, the data displayed on a monitor may be hard to identify.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a technique for enabling the data of each cell to be easily displayed in the color desirable for the data.
The present invention relates to a document output apparatus which outputs a document made up of plural cells each having data assigned thereto, the apparatus comprises:
plural color tables each storing plural color information corresponding to plural data values;
designating means for designating one color table from among the plural color tables;
retrieving means for retrieving color information corresponding to the data value of each of said plural cells; and
output means for outputting the document, with each of said plural cells being indicated in a color corresponding to the color information retrieved by the retrieving means, in which the color information stored in one color table differs from that stored in another.
According to the present invention, it is easily to color the cells in the document based on the data assigned to each cell.